European Commission reimburses farmers with €433 million from crisis reserve

The European Commission is making €433 million available for reimbursement to farmers, as set out in a regulation published today. This amount comes from the agricultural crisis reserve for the 2017 budget year, made up of money taken from farmers' direct payments for this year. The amounts deducted may be reimbursed to farmers by the member states as from 1 December 2017.

Despite a number of critical situations in the agricultural sector in the past year, the funds available in the crisis reserve in 2017 were not used. Additional support measures for some sectors facing difficulties such as fruit, vegetables, dairy and other livestock sectors were financed from the existing budget in 2017. Farmers concerned by damages caused by adverse weather conditions in spring this year have been supported with higher advances for direct payments for 2018, and derogations from certain conditions related to greening payments.

The concept of the agricultural crisis reserve and reimbursement mechanism was agreed in the 2013 reform of the common agricultural policy and was applied for the first time in the 2014 budget year. The deduction only applies to direct payments above €2,000. It did not yet apply to Croatia for the budget year 2017 as direct payments were still not fully phased in following the country joining the European Union in 2013.